There was only one aim today: extend our winning streak from six to seven. And we had the team to do it, even if star bowler Joe White had to withdraw from the eleven at late notice. More worrying was the fact that there were only about two Remnants present ten minutes before game time, and the resultant delayed start contributed to the late and dark finish, as predicted by the Engineering captain.
Batting first, we got off to a flyer, reaching 35/0 off 5 (six-ball) overs, thanks primarily to a steady dose of wides, although with some help from openers Andy Owen (15 off 24 balls) and John Young (7 off 12 balls). But then Engineering upped the ante by bringing on a diminutive Antipodean bowler who delivered a spell of fast in-swingers that netted him deserved figures of 2/6 and wrecked our innings. Our second 35 runs took precisely twice as many balls as our first, although Jamie Smith (15 off 24 balls in his first Remnants game) and Tom Jordan (27 off 28 balls) at least managed to last long enough to feast on the change bowlers when they arrived.
Unfortunately the comeback was short-lived, and our innings ended not in an explosion of boundaries, or in an orgy of quick singles, but in mayhem. The disintegration could be traced back to the moment Paul Jordan (4 off 16 balls) was hit on the foot by yet another in-swinging yorker, after which running between wickets became harder and harder and eventually impossible for him. That was bad enough, but the rest of us had no idea what was going on, and so the barracking got wilder and wilder until Paul finally called for a runner. In theory that was the problem sorted, except Paul then kept charging off for singles before remembering he'd out-sourced that task. And once Paul was achored to the crease, then there was still room for things to go wrong when Deepak Gajjala (8 off 7 balls) got out in the name of quick runs. Paul's runner at the time, Kiran Sakhamuri (1* off 1 ball), was next in and so marched down to the other end of the pitch; but that left Paul runnerless, and so Daniel Mortlock headed out to take up the post. But Daniel had been scoring, so that meant Les Collings, who'd umpired through the first 19 overs, had to take over the that task whilst simultaneously padding up in case yet another wicket fell. The all too predictable result was that the scorebook didn't tally, the various sections of it adding up 106, 108 and 110, respectively. Needless to say we plumbed for the latter (because it was the running total, and only coincidentally because it was the largest).
After our fairly disastrous innings it wasn't too surprising that we struggled to gel in the field. Whilst Kiran Sakhamuri (1/27) and Tom Jordan (1/17) both made breakthroughs, there were enough bad balls that the Engineering top order were able to make steady progress towards their target. It was no doubt representative of goings on that the busiest fielder was Richard Rex, who ran tirelessly around the (much) larger of the two square boundaries. That said, Deepak Gajjala and Ben Armitage both held good catches, the latter being a particularly noteworthy effort in part because of the decisiveness with which he called John Young off the ball, but primarily because Ben had discharged himself from Addenbrooke's only an hour previously. Ben (1/19) also took a critical wicket with the ball, but Engineering were still cruising on 87/3, and needed just 24 runs from 42 balls to complete an easy victory.
We needed something something special - an inspired bowling change or stunning catch to lift the team and restore belief. And it seemed we had both when Tom came back on and induced a leading edge that went straight to Daniel Mortlock at mid-wicket. But somehow the ball popped out of his hands and, worse, he was too distraught to throw straight, thus also missing what should have been an easy run out.
That might have been our chance gone, but the reprieved batsman was stumped by Andy Owen later in the over (not that the rather, er, unfocussed umpire was going to give the decision until apparently swayed by a chorus of "come on, mate"s). And then Daniel channeled his energies into a superb spell of wrong-uns, including the day's comedy wicket when the batsman, having jammed down on the ball, watched in slow-motion disbelief as it gently rolled towards his wicket, finally coming to rest against the off-stump . . . but somehow dislodging the bail from its unusually shallow groove. Daniel (3/19) snared two more victims, after which we only needed two more wickets to bowl out our nine-man opposition. More importantly, the whole team had come alive during this little period, with Tom, Ben and Les all bowling superb second spells, the fielding evolving from grazing to predatory, and the pressure all on the batsmen. They were now struggling to get the ball of the square, but the problem for us was that they didn't need to: with the score at 101/6 after 16 overs, nurdled singles would be enough. We went close to getting the two wickets we needed, with several perilously close LBWs appeals, edges falling just beyond out-stretched hands, mis-hits that sailed into gaps, an outfield catch spilled in the gloom, and inside edges shaving the stumps. But in the end the batsmen held firm and hit the inevitable winning run from the first ball of the 19th over.
Still, it was a brilliant comeback in the last quarter of the game - and unlucky given the numerous "nearlies". The real problem was just that we were a dozen runs short of setting a decent target, and that was primarily due to the above-mentioned bowler being simply too good for us today. Our Nadal-like streak of consecutive wins has thus ended at six, and Rob Harvey's Border-like streak of playing in the first ten games of the season has also been broken. So that just leaves maybe the best streak of all: all eleven scheduled fixtures have gone ahead.